The Newport Gwent Dragons assistant coach, Rob Appleyard, has denied that his side are on the verge of signing Gavin Henson.

The Wales international, who has been without a club since leaving the French side Toulon, has been strongly rumoured to be heading to the Welsh region.

But while Appleyard admitted that the Dragons have discussed signing Henson, he said: "I don't believe there's any conversations going on between Gavin and the Dragons. At the moment I'm unaware that Gavin will be coming to the Dragons."

Newport recently admitted they want to improve their midfield options and were "interested" in signing the 29-year-old former Ospreys star.

The Welsh Rugby Union, who hold a 50% share in the Dragons, have also talked with the region's coach, Darren Edwards, about Henson's future.

"I think Darren has had long discussions about that," Appleyard said. "And I know the union have also had discussions about that.

"It is not good to see a player of his reputation not with a club but maybe he needs to put those performances in so there are more people lining up to sign him up."

Henson has played only a handful of games since returning from 18 months away from the game last December, and was also with Saracens briefly last season before a spell with Toulon, which ended in May.

The Dragons could be without a number of leading players for the start of the season as Aled Brew, Lloyd Burns, Luke Charteris, Toby Faletau, Dan Lydiate and Jason Tovey are all in Wales's provisional World Cup squad.

"We haven't recruited what you would call marquee signings," Appleyard said. "We didn't go out and look for that sort of signing. There is a good team spirit in this club and we didn't want to ruin that by bringing a marquee signing in."